The present invention is directed to a vending apparatus for dispensing food-trays, and especially hot food-trays. The invention is directed to such an apparatus that dispenses one tray of food in response to a coin, coins or tokens being inserted into a slot of the apparatus.
The apparatus of the invention has an intended use in any environment where vending machines are found, and has especial importance and relevance for use in senior citizen centers, or independent, active, retirement communities, and other food service operations, and the like, for dispensing hot-food trays to senior citizens. When the invention is used in these establishments, the vending apparatus of the invention is intended to replace, or supplement, the current practice of waiting on the senior citizens in a dining room or hall by a number of waitresses or waiters. The apparatus of the present invention is specifically intended for ease of use when removing a vending tray, and for its ability to heat and keep hot those food-vending trays placed therein until dispensed. The use of the apparatus of the invention in senior citizen centers, and the like, thus allows for a considerable reduction of personnel and employees required to serve the senior citizens residing there, and, also, engenders a sealing of self-reliance and self-worth in each person, since, owing to the ease and safeness of use the apparatus of the invention, each person is able to serve himself or herself.
Vending machines for dispensing foods and trays are, of course, well-known. Many prior-art vending apparatuses dispense hot food on trays. Examples of vending machines dispensings trays of heated food are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos 4,592,485; 5,147,068; and 5,245,150. Each of these patents discloses a vending machine that dispenses a tray of food. Before dispensing the tray, the food in the tray is heated by a microwave oven that is moved to the location of the chosen, or vended, tray picked by the customer. When the microwave oven is positioned at that location, the tray is pushed into the interior of the microwave oven, whereupon it is heated, and, thereafter, the tray is delivered or dispensed to the customer. Above-mentioned U.S. Pat. No. 5,245,150 discloses that, instead of using a translating microwave oven for heating the food in each vended tray, each compartment, in which is placed a vending tray of food, may be associated with its own heating unit to the rear of the compartment, with a moving mechanism moving the tray into and out of the oven and then out of its compartment for taking by the customer, thus obviating the need for transporting one microwave oven from one shelf to the next for each tray vended. These prior-art apparatuses are used for heating or reheating the food in the tray after the tray has been selected, or vended. Thus, the oven, or other heating elements, are not energized or used until a specific tray has been selected during the vending operation. Only after the specific tray of food has been selected does the heating unit or microwave oven then heat the food, for subsequent dispensing thereafter. If the meal being dispensed contains meat, milk dishes, and other perishable foods, then the cabinet of the vending machine must be refrigerated.
The vending apparatus of the present invention dispenses trays of hot food, such as meat, milk dishes, and other perishable foods, but does not refrigerate the cabinet of the apparatus, since the food of each tray is kept hot continuously by individual heating units associated with each dispensing compartment of the apparatus.
Since the vending apparatus of the invention has especial, intended applicability for use by senior citizens, it is imperative that when the tray of hot food is dispensed, it is dispensed in a safe manner and in a way that allows one to remove the tray from its compartment in an as easy a manner as possible. Prior-art dispensing machines typically allow one to open the door of the vended compartment, requiring one to reach into the compartment in order to pull the vended tray out. If the tray, and, therefore, the compartment itself, is hot, there is an ever-present chance that one may burn himself, or drop the tray during removal of the tray, which is ever-more likely to occur when a senior citizen is removing the tray.